Sunday, January 28, 2007

The reason I do my job (aka "I Win")

The weekend was...good; however, it was discouraging. Maybe in a few days I can write about it. In the mean time, here is something one of the students who went this weekend wrote and posted. In the midst of my discouragement, her words reminded me of why I do my job and that success isn't always measured by scores or the accolades of the crowds but in how my students feel about the job they did. Indeed, they won.

3793

I just want to let all of you know how much fun I had this weekend.You are all amazing!!Some of the nicest people I have met in a long time.Even though I am an authentic chorus kid you all welcomed me in and I am glad to have made some new friends.In fact spending this weekend with all of you has made me want to do more stuff with drama.Saturday was the first time I have ever had to act while singing.I thought it would be 10times harder but being comfortable with the people watching really helped.I am proud of all of you for your performance on Friday and I think you deserved way more than what was given.You have converted me from strictly a chorus geek to a chorus/theatre geek.

P.S

how you doin?

The Cast and crew of "The Winner". They are my heros and, no matter what anyone else says, they are Superior Winners in my book


Me with my seniors. They amaze me and "because I knew 'them' I have been changed for good".


The juniors...I am in awe of what they are capable of doing.


The sophomores...though there were but 3 this year; their talent, beauty and potential is incredible.


The freshmen...the future


Am I am blessed with besutiful children, or what???? They may not be mine biologically; yet, they are mine in my heart. Indeed, I have a quiver-full. I wonder, at times, if they know how much they have taught me??? Their capacity to love, encourage, perform, create, teach, learn, share and more knows no bounds.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

A recent article by my brother

It is amazing the ways my brother has changed over the last 10 years. If anyone had told him his senior year he would still be in school and would be working on a PhD, I doubt he would have believed it. Ten years ago, John was coming out of a "slacker" phase. High school wasn't the greatest experience for John. Then God got ahold of him. Those 6 words don't really begin to explain his story...which is his to tell...but they do show a lot. John was radically changed. That isn't to say he wasn't already a pretty amazing person, but I am a bit biased. He is one of the most interesting, creative, fun, loving, caring, enthusiastic, radical, goofy people I know (and that is saying a lot!).

John is currently living in Edinburgh, Scotland. Yeah...I'm a little jealous. I would love to be able to live in England or Scotland for at least a year or so! (hmmmmm...God, could you open that door???). I am excited that he is having such amazing experiences. It's hard being this far away from him, though. While things are far from easy for him, the doors do seem to be tumbing open and God is directing his paths.

He recently published an article on John Owen. (John Owen is the Reformer John is focused on in his PhD writings) I have to laugh that John is so captured by the Reformation. In my 'world' the Reformation is a paragraph or so of information...the Reformers weren't exactly know for their advancements in theatre. The reformers closed the theatres...deeming them 'immoral' once again. So...John can have the reformers and I'll take Shakespeare...the Restoration...the Greeks...the Romans...19th Century...you get the idea. I guess we can come together on the Liturgical Drama...lol.

Here's the link to his article...

Monday, January 15, 2007

A thought from MLK of MLK

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

I don't know if I could say anything more on this one.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

More thoughts from Elizabeth Elliot, this time on Spontaneity

Carlyle wrote of nineteen-to-twenty-five-year-old youths that they had reached "the maximum of detestability." We have been telling ourselves that youth is beautiful and spontaneity one of the most beautiful things about youth. I wonder if spontaneity is not sometimes a euphemism for laziness--an indulgence which Carlyle found in youth. Isn't it much easier not to prepare one's mind and heart, not to premeditate, simply to have things (O, vacuous word!) "unstructured"?

If you leave a thing altogether alone in hopes that it will happen all by itself, the chances are it never will. Who learns to play the piano, wins an election, or loses weight spontaneously?

I have just read Jean Nidetch's book on the Weight Watchers, and while it is obvious that her basic theme (that people get fat because they eat) is hardly a world-shaking discovery, her method is one that made her a millionaire: get people to work at their problems together. Reducing doesn't just happen. It isn't a thing the majority succeed in doing all by themselves.

She doesn't let them make up their own diet as they go along--that's what put the fat on them in the first place. She doesn't suggest that losing weight is best done when you feel like it. She doesn't even say that it works only if you are being "yourself."

In fact, I was reminded throughout the book of how many analogies there are between losing weight and practicing Christianity. There are rules to obey. You will to obey them. Some people insist that the devotional life is somehow purer
or better if it is pursued only when we feel like it. Worship for some is thought to be an "experience" rather than an act. Losing weight is also an experience--there's no doubt about that--in fact, the expression "being born again" occurs in the testimonies of those who have done it. But losing weight most certainly has to begin with an act.

It is an act of the will. You decide to do this and not to do that. You must arrange, prepare, and carefully carry out your plan. The combustion of those daily calories will happen without fail, but only when the conditions are properly set up.

Love is another thing. ''But I want it to be spontaneous," people say. They think that if nothing is happening it is good enough reason for a divorce. "If it isn't spontaneous, it isn't love," they tell us. Where did that idea get started? Do we understand what spontaneity requires?

The kind of love the Bible talks about is action, and it comes from a force and an energy within. That energy is the love of Christ. His love creates the condition of heart (it does not come from nowhere) which enables us to do things: to give a cup of cold water, to go a second mile, to "look for a way of being constructive," as Phillips' translation puts 1 Corinthians 13:4.
"It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when everything else has fallen."

Christian love is a far cry from a misunderstood spontaneity which is merely unstructured. This love is a very firm and solid thing indeed, requiring will, obedience, action, and an abiding trust in the "Strong Son of God, Immortal Love."